Israel is battling both Hamas and Biden
Israeli diplomatic source worries that Biden could ‘throw Israel under the bus’ as US elections near.
In the early days of the war, Biden was seen as a stalwart defender of Israel. Now he's an obstruction to victory.
Just a week ago, the Biden Administration lauded Israel over its “extraordinarily generous offer” in hostage/ceasefire negotiations with Hamas. And now all of a sudden the White House suggests the onus is back on Israel to keep those talks alive, despite Hamas’s clear rejection of that generous offer?
US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had what some described as a tense phone call yesterday. The White House later said the president had reminded Bibi of his opposition to an IDF operation in Rafah, and pressed for Israel to continue efforts to reach a hostage/ceasefire deal.
It’s become increasingly clear to Israelis that the American government’s primary objective is to end the war in Gaza, even if that means Hamas survives to fight another day. And the best way to do that at present is to draw out the hostage/ceasefire talks.
The reason is simple. Biden’s got an election to win in November, and a large segment of his potential voter base is very unhappy with the Gaza war and America’s present support for it.
For Israelis, this is a fight for long-term survival, so their patience was bound to run out. And now that the Rafah operation has begun, there’s viable concern that Biden could turn fully hostile toward the Jewish state.
“The Biden administration says it is committed to eliminating Hamas, but in practice it is pressing to avoid action in the last major stronghold of the terrorist organization, against the backdrop of elections [in the US],” an Israeli diplomatic source told the daily Israel Hayom. “We are at a critical moment in the campaign. If the Americans turn their backs on Israel, the implications for the entire region will be severe,” he added.
Biden would be unlikely to turn on Israel as a whole. That would risk losing him the votes of moderate Democrats and many, if not most of his Jewish constituents. No, instead Biden will make Netanyahu a scapegoat, claiming the Israeli premier, his government’s “extraordinarily generous offer” notwithstanding, was the true obstacle to a hostage/ceasefire deal.
Netanyahu will be painted as a warmonger who is somehow forcing his nation into continued conflict against the will of the people. Despite the fact that many, many polls show that the vast majority of Israelis want the war to continue until Hamas is defeated and destroyed, and the atrocities of Oct. 7 can never again be visited upon them.
So while Israel’s soldiers are fiercely battling jihadists in Gaza and elsewhere, her politicians and defense officials are engaged in an equally-critical diplomatic fight, trying to hold out long enough for either the current American administration to come to its senses, or for Donald Trump to return to the Oval Office.
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